I almost died! 720 Restore -TONS of Pics

[Jedidentist]

Well, I didn’t really almost die…it didn’t fall on me or anything, but it took so damn long I felt like killing myself. So are you ready for a long story with lots of pics! Pull up a chair and get the popcorn! This project started out as a poorly listed E-bay auction for a “non-working” 720 that I ended up winning for $95…with $450 shipping of course. Here’s what I bought as was shown in the auction:







The seller stated that “It worked when it went into storage”, but I found out later that would have been impossible. As a nice addition, I actually received an extra joystick with it for no extra cost!

[Jedidentist]

So it showed up to my door looking like this:



I unwrapped that baby and rolled it around to the back of my basement in the snow by myself (no, it wasn’t uphill and a 10 mile trip, but the 400 lbs sure made me feel like an old man!). I got to work stripping everything down, and found an original manual with it…of course, after I already had one printed and bound. The stripping process is always fun:

[Jedidentist]

I had to Bondo the corner and fill in another few spots…gotta make it minty!:



The monitor bezel was also crap, which I ended up painting:


I sanded, polyurethaned, sanded, and polyurethaned everything before applying Rich’s vinyl kit:



First off, I want to say that Rich is awesome, a responsive and responsible seller, and I will continue to buy from him as long as I have projects. However, in the case of the vinyl kit, the piece that goes around the base on the game is black…his kit has this piece as silver. I prepped and primed my base and painted it semi-gloss black to match the original color scheme. I also had an issue with the black front vinyl…I had an area that would continually “rise up” like an air bubble, but it was an adhesive issue...it was missing from that one spot. He shipped me out another one, at cost, without question. When applying the silver vinyl, you have to be really careful, because if you have to lift it back up due to an air bubble, the vinyl changes color because it stretches slightly, so be careful. Likewise, on the front I had issues with getting a stretched area around the coin door hole. It was really tough to get it to lay flat for the last 5-6” on the bottom due to some slight torquing, and I had to use a heat gun VERY slowly at low heat to get it to lay flat. This works well if it sticks to itself and creases…gentle heat will “release” it, but the heat will also stretch it slightly.

[Jedidentist]

Of course, I had to replace the CPO and Boom Box as well. One of the grills was broken, so I gently pushed it back and JB Welded it and painted it. I also had a perforated speaker, and fortunately for me, WadeLanham happened to be selling off a bunch of used 720 parts, so I picked up a couple of speakers and mixed and matched. Now came the time to apply Phoenix Arcade’s decals. Unfortunately, this was the most nerve wracking part of all. This is what happened the first time I did the Boom Box:





The adhesive is very sticky, which normally is great. However, the adhesive between the decal and the plastic overlay is not…the separation you see occurred when I lifted it back about 1” to see how it was laying down. In fact, the stuff actually peels off when you just remove the paper backing. Now I’ve got to give it to Darin, he’s awesome as well, and like Rich, people should never have an issue with ordering from him. I sent him these photos and he sent me another Boom Box cover at no charge. Unfortunately, it had the same issues, but it was at least serviceable and only noticeable when you look up close. So just a word of warning to those of you doing this…be very careful removing the paper backing, and I would make a “jig” to get it to lay down right…you’ll only get one chance at it.

[Jedidentist]

After completing that and replacing the light bulb, I painted the coin door and replaced the coin return buttons. They originally looked like this:


I also swapped out all of the buttons on the control panel. Between the 2 joysticks I had, I could have made a functional one, but who wants it to just be functional? Time for some repro parts from Ram-Controls! This was fun!



I replaced the discs, stick, rollers…basically everything except the housings and board. I also bought and replaced the T-molding from Dave as well.

[Jedidentist]

About now was when I started working on the “non-functioning” part. When I first got it, it played blind, no hum from the monitor and no glow from the neck. I don’t know jack about electronics…asked some questions here and had a repair guy look at it, but he self-admittedly didn’t know much about monitors. After looking a bit more, I found that I was missing something:



I was missing the transistors on both sides. Ordered those, waited a week to get them,, replaced them, turned it on and…nothing. No neck glow or anything…great. So, I gave up and sent the monitor board to Chad at arcadecup.com. Great guy. Wait my turn watching the queue for about a month, he gets to mine and gives me a call. “Hey Derek. Did you know that you were missing the screws for those transistors on the sides? I just put them in and everything worked!” Holy crap. Well, I had him replace the caps while he was at it. He mailed it back to me, and Voila…I had a picture…except it looked like this:



And my controller didn’t work at all…didn’t even register as being there. That’s when I enlisted the services of Francis at Ataricade.com. Again, fantastic guy…love this hobby for the people involved. We discusses things via e-mail…found out I was missing a Leta chip…great!



I sent him my boards to test other issues, and he just flat out swapped a working set with mine. Well, I got the working set, and they didn’t work for me. So…after a midnight phone call or two, I ended up sending him my boards back, and he recommended sending mine to El Dorado.

[Jedidentist]

Now, I was a little leery about them from some posts here and there about delays, etc. Well, I called John there and he said not to worry about it…he got them, replaced the connector and crystal and got it back out to me in less than a week…another A+ for service! So after I got them back, I replaced the power supply…just in case…and woo hoo!!!!

So in the end, I now have a fully restored 720 that took almost 4 months to complete…only about 1 month to restore, and the other 3 months waiting for stuff to get mailed all across the US. Without further ado:

[Jedidentist]

And of course, what would a Jedidentist restoration thread be without my obligatory OMGWTF pose!



Yes, those are my original Steve Caballero boards from the late 80s as well as my VSW shirt autographed by Natas Kaupas. And I couldn’t help myself and bought some Nike 720 sneakers as well…the kids in the office love them!




Now…on to my next project, my UDOT that I just got this past weekend! I’ve got to take it from here:



to here:



and back again!

Again, a big thanks to Francis, Wade, Chad, Rich, Darin, John, and everyone else who helped make this happen!

Derek

[KillerKades]

Awesome job! Welcome to the club. I did mine last year and had a lot of fun doing it. Posted my project here: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=97798

Good job on the vinyl. I chose paint as I really don't like working with vinyl. Great job again. Always nice to see a new minty game come back to life -- especially a 720.

[pookdolie]

That came out GREAT! Looks like one of the trickier machines to restore, too...